More about Serendipity

Serendipity, as we've said before is a most capricious and unpredictable muse. But she can be courted. And the way to court her is to do the things that give her an opportunity to show up and do her work. We've talked about some of those things in previous posts. Still another way to get her to smile on you is this:

When You Find Something with Possibilities, Work It Thoroughly

As I was photographing a street bagpiper in a small square near London's Piccadilly Circus,

I became aware of a beautiful young English woman who was also watching the piper. She was to one side and slightly behind me. 

 Quietly turning my lens toward her as she watched the piper, I made several exposures.

 When she noticed me, I smiled a request for her to look at me. 

 A nice photo of a lovely young woman. A good time to stop, maybe? No, because she's enjoying the attention and cooperating. If I keep shooting, something even better might happen.

And sure enough, something better did happen: the sun came out from behind a cloud and highlighted her hair! But she was looking away.

Then serendipity did its thing, as the sun continued to highlight her hair and a red, double-decker bus moved into position behind her. The essence of English beauty. I got the shot because the situation had possibilities and I kept working it. And serendipity smiled.

(Olympus OM2n, 100-300 Tokina ATX zoom, Fujichrome 100.)

The Serendipity Factor

Pencil of Light, McLemore Cove, Walker County, Georgia

Happy New Year! May Serendipity Follow You Wherever You Go!

Have you noticed that some photographers seem to have a monopoly on luck? Or at the very least, a downright uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time.

But is it really luck--or chance--or fate? Partly, perhaps, but I think there's something else involved as well. Something I call the serendipity factor. It has been responsible for many of my best photographs, and I believe you can learn to use it to improve your photography also.

According to Mr. Webster, serendipity is "an apparent aptitude for making fortunate discoveries accidentally." I can't do much about controlling fate, maybe, but I've found serendipity to be a most agreeable muse, and one who can be courted by the photographer who is willing to spend some time with her. In fact, it takes only three things to win her favor: preparation, presence, and awareness.

First, prepare. Simply carrying a camera (loaded with film and ready to shoot, of course) is the most basic form of preparedness. The more advance thought you give to such matters as the equipment you're likely to need, the kinds of subjects you may encounter, the probable lighting conditions, and possible problems which may arise, the more likely it is that serendipity will bestow her favors upon you.

Second,  presence. Or to put it more simply, be there. Old-time press photographers used to say that the key to great pictures is "f8 and be there!" But where is there? I don't know. You'll have to find that out for yourself. But I can tell you this: if you're enjoying a leisurely breakfast at your hotel in Bangkok as the sun rises and the streets begin to come alive with people, you're not there. There is out on the street, taking advantage of that glorious light and the relaxed, early-morning mood of the people.

Where's there? There is anywhere things are happening. "Theres" are infinite in number and you can't cover them all, but if you pick one and pursue it good things will happen. If you want to meet serendipity you must go where she is.

Third, be aware. Let yourself be loose and sensitive to the things and people around you. You can't do this if you're uptight or in a hurry, so slow down and tune in. The great French photojournalist Robert Doisneau, who had more encounters with serendipity in a month than most of us have in a lifetime, said "My way of working is to relax and take things slowly. I enjoy just wasting time...I believe I have gained most in life in those moments in which I simply wandered about without any fixed purpose in mind."

Prepare, be there, and be aware--and serendipity will find you. And you'll find that the more diligent you are in practicing these three things, the luckier you will become.

I'll be talking more about serendipity, because it's an important part of my approach to photography. Meanwhile, here are a few guiding principles to help you court her favor. More to come in future posts.

 

Assembling the raft, Madras Beach, India

Get Out Early
Some photographers prefer evening light, but I often find my best pictures early in the morning. There's a different, softer quality of light, a calm freshness in the air, and both people and nature seem more relaxed and approachable. On the city beach at Madras, India, the pictures come early or not at all, because the fisherman lash their raft-boats together and push them out through the surf at first light.  (Olympus OM, 35mm Zuiko, Fujichrome 100.)

Early morning, Mayalan Village, Northern Guatemala 

Go Where the Action Is

 In third world countries, the action is out on the streets and in the market places. In the U.S., it's sometimes a little harder to find, but it's still there if you look for it. The northern Guatemalan village of Mayalan is a beehive of activity in the early morning as the people go to their work and the children to school. Situations like this are so loaded with possibilities that you can almost get by without serendipity!  (Olympus OM, 75-205 Vivitar zoom, Fujichrome 100.)

More about Sharpness, Bokeh, and Cheap Lenses

Pileated Woodpecker pair. Fuji X-T20, Fujinon XC 50-230 f4.5-6.7 OIS lens,

310mm equivalent, 1/60th second, f6.7, ISO 800.

If I could be forgiven a bit of heresy. . .I believe that Mike Johnston (The Online Photographer) unleashed a monster upon the photo world back in the '90s when, as editor of the magazine Photo Technique, he published the article which introduced the concept of bokeh to the western world.

Bokeh, which has to do with the character of the out-of-focus areas in a photograph, began immediately to be conflated and confused with shallow depth-of-field

Shallow depth-of-field, which used to be just one of the tools in a competent photographer's toolbox; now has become a religious cult. Heaven help anyone who doesn't bow obeisance to it.

Although I know how to use shallow depth-of-field when the situation calls for it, I'm from another generation and usually prefer photographs that are relatively sharp from front to back.

Speaking of sharpness, I don't usually care for ultimate sharpness either. Heresy again, I know, but ultimate sharpness isn't very kind to faces. And even in other areas it isn't always desirable. When I made the photographs for my book Rock City Barns: A Passing Era in the mid '90s, I chose to use 35mm film, even though the conventional wisdom would have been to use 4x5, or at least medium format. But these were old barns, and I wanted them to have a little atmosphere, not super-crispness in every detail. Even at that, the published photos were often mistaken for 4x5, or even, in one case, for 5x7 by a fellow professional.

In digital photography, the Canon original 5D provided more than enough image quality for my needs, even for landscapes and architecture. I later moved to a 6D, but that was mostly because it was smaller and lighter, and most especially because I no longer had to keep cleaning the sensor or zapping dust spots out of skies! (That was the bane of my existence when I was doing a substantial amount of architectural photography.) I guess I should also mention that by the time I made the switch, the 5D was eight years old. A true fossil in the digital age.

I'm sure some people may actually need the sharpest and fastest lenses available for the work they do, and I don't mean this unkindly; but I think that in many cases the striving for bigger, faster, and more expensive is a sidetrack; a diversion from what photography is all about: making pictures.

Around 2000, as I was closing out my downtown studio, another local commercial photographer came to look at my space with a view to renting it. He was a dedicated user of medium format and 4x5, and held 35mm in low regard. Looking at the framed 16x 20 and 20x24 photographs hanging on my studio walls, he would point at one and then another, asking on what format they were shot. He was somewhat scandalized and almost unable to believe that most of them had been shot on 35mm film. Finally, as he was about to leave, he pointed at one 20x24 portrait and said, "Now you can't tell me that was shot on 35mm!"

"Yes, Doug," I said, as he threw up his hands and left.

So what's my point? My point is that you don't always have to have the latest and the greatest. Reasonably good equipment, reasonably good technique, and a reasonably good idea of what you're trying to accomplish can add up to some pretty good photographs.

More-than-100% crop.

A note about the photograph(s). One day two years ago, my wife called me to look out the kitchen window. There, on a dying tree in the woods just across our driveway were a pair of rare pileated woodpeckers! I grabbed my Fuji X-T-20 and the longest lens I own, the 50-230 (75-345 in full-frame terms) and banged off a few shots. The 50-230 is definitely not one of Fuji's premium lenses, but it's small, light, sharp, and has good image stabilization.

In Praise of Cheap Lenses

I'm not a lens snob.

In fact, I mostly tune out the ad infinitum and ad nauseum discussions of rendering, edge sharpness, bokeh, etc., that seem to be the bread and butter of many blogs and web sites. I have difficulty seeing the fine distinctions they make, and wouldn't care much if I could. A lens is to take pictures with. If it does a reasonable job of that (as in, do the photos look okay?) nothing else is required.

I began my full-time professional career in 1978 with a pair of Nikkormats, a 50mm Nikkor, and two Vivitars -- 28mm f2.5 and 100mm f2.8. They were fine. A year or so later, I switched to the Olympus OM system, which I used for 12 years with great satisfaction. I had quite a few lenses for the OMs, and all were satisfactory except for the 35-70 f3.6. That one was a dog.

By 1993, aging eyes dictated a switch to autofocus, so I bought into the Canon EOS system and used various bodies and lenses for the next 24 years. Along the way, I used a number of L lenses, including the 28-80 f2.8-4L, the 28-70 f2.8L, and the 24-70 f2.8L (twice). I also owned the 24-104 f4L twice. But I kept going back to the 24-85 f3.5-4.5 and the 28-105 f3.5-4.5, neither of which is an L lens, but both are small and light, fast enough for the work I do,  and again, sharp enough for the work I do.

Not long after my book Rock City Barns: A Passing Era was published, I walked into my local pro lab and found another photographer standing at the counter leafing through my book, which is in 9x12-inch coffee-table format. Having learned from the lab owner that I was the creator of the book, he asked if I had made the photos on 5x7-inch film. When I told him no, he said, "Oh, 4x5?" When I explained that all were made with 35mm cameras, he had difficulty believing it. But in fact, almost all the photos in the book were shot with the Canon EF 28-105 f3.5-4.5 or the 24mm f2.8. As Kirk Tuck says, there are very few lenses that aren't sharp at f8!

In 2017 I sold my Canon gear and bought into the Fuji system. I will tell you that I do not own their more expensive and highly rated lenses, but the ones I have do the job for me just fine.

I don't do many weddings these days, but here's a photo from a wedding in 2018, taken with a Fuji X-T20 and the 16-50 f3.5-5.6 kit lens at f8. 

Full frame: Fuji X-T20, 16-50 f3.5-5.6 kit lens at f8

100% crop The blogging process does not render the true sharpness of this photo. In the original the woman's eyelashes are very clearly delineated.

To quote Kirk Tuck again, "Very few lenses are not sharp at f8!"